


Of Heartbeats

by Lightspeed



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Death, Fluff and Angst, Hearts, M/M, Morbid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 12:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightspeed/pseuds/Lightspeed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heavy’s got some morose hangups about a very simple, but very powerful gesture of comfort.  He doesn't like to hear Medic's heartbeat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Heartbeats

“Are you serious?”

“Am serious. I do not like to hear your heartbeat. Like to hold you, rub nose through hair, kiss your soft skin. But I do not press my ear to you for a reason. I do not like to hear your heartbeat.”

Medic's eyebrows hovered near his hair line, surprise and confusion scrawled across his features, outlined in silver as moonlight wriggled through the blinds across the room. He looked down at the bear of a man laying atop him, chin gently resting on his sternum, tickling through his chest hair in slow, circular motions. Heavy was not meeting his eye, his gaze lingering somewhere around his collarbones. He was almost ashamed as he spoke, his big hands running lovingly along his sides and arms, his bulk a comfortable weight against his body.

“I don't understand. I enjoy laying my head on your chest, hearing that big heart of yours beating. Your body is a machine, and it works in perfect time. I love to hear it churning, moving, living.” The doctor's fingers traced the shell of the big man's ear gently before his hand slid down to his shoulder, lightly trailing circles through the soft fuzz that ran along it.

The Russian shrugged his massive shoulders with a resigned sigh. It sounded so romantic when his beloved said such things. “Is not same for me. When I hear your heartbeat, I know it is just organ inside you. Pumps blood through veins and arteries. It reminds me Doktor is just blood and bones and meat. I am just blood and bones and meat. And someday, we will both stop working. Heart will someday stop beating, will be still, and we will be no more. Everything ends, and someday, I will be without you, or you without me. Someday, one of us will lose the other one. One of us will die, and rot. Bowels and bladder will empty, blood will pool in our flesh, skin will soften and slough, and we will be nothing more than rotten meat until there is nothing left but cracked bone. One of us will be hollowed out and filled with chemicals and put underground, or thrown in fire and reduced to bone ash. If we are lucky. And then, the other one will do the same thing, but not without being left alone to suffer first. I do not want to live without my Doktor. I do not want my Doktor to have to live without me. I do not like thinking that the best-case ending to this fairy tale is we live happily ever after until one of us dies, then wait for death. Or maybe best case is die at same time. Glorious battle, or terrible car wreck, or undercooked wurst.”

Heavy's eyes trailed slowly up to Medic's as he finished punctuating his thoughts with the terribly timed joke. He saw the doctor's blue eyes were wide, shimmering in the invasive moonlight. He quickly looked away, ashamed of his own morbid thoughts.

“Mein kuschelbär, you think so fatally. I did not know such thoughts troubled you.”

“I think on this often,” the big man replied with a heavy sigh.

“I suppose in our line of work, death is something we're often reminded of,” Medic mused, leaning forward to plant a kiss on his lover's forehead.

“When we are on battlefield, I die many times. I see Doktor die many times. I see his insides, on outside, and it makes me weak. It makes me sick to see beautiful man I love become like so much meat on desert floor. When I look at you, I see perfection. I see my Doktor. I see my lover. I do not see bones, and blood, and meat. But when I lay head on your chest, and hear your heart beating, I know that is what you are. It breaks my heart to think of such things. We will not always have respawn, and it cannot chase time.”

“Bär, I am sorry. I understand now. You need that separation, ja?”

“Da.”

“Then I will never ask you to listen to mein heartbeat. But permit me to continue listening to yours?”

“If it makes my Doktor happy, I do not mind.”

“Danke, mein Heavy. Because unlike you, it is not hearing your heartbeat that I fear.”

“Then until it stops, you will hear it.”

“Ach, you are so morbid.”


End file.
